CinnamonJellyBean '24–'25 app cycle Class of 2028 class year

My first piece of wisdom is to treat this site like an organizing system–not a crystal ball or social media site or anything else. Also please curb how long you spend on Reddit as well. The only time I got something from either of these two sites was my Yale waitlist, which I had to check manually (no email as of the time of writing this 6 days later). Otherwise, all it did was stress me out unnecessarily. Just live life like normal!

I think I performed at, or maybe a little above, my stats. As I see it, the big factors in earning my most difficult A’s (and arguably the Yale WL) were the following:

Preparedness: This at every point:
I only took the LSAT when I was PT-ing steadily and comfortably .- I asked my four (!) LOR writers in August/September so they had around a month to write, and met up with them throughout the summer to warm them up to the idea of writing LORs on my behalf.

• I customized which LORs I sent to schools based on what the schools look for (mainly professors vs. bosses/colleagues).
  I prepared applications over the course of 2 months and only submitted when they were ready, - and I had nothing new to add. I moved my submission deadline back when I realized I had more to add to my personal statement.
  I customized my diversity/perspective essays for each school, in order to communicate what I would bring to their community. Speaking of–I only chose schools I would be excited to attend.- I think file readers can tell when you are not actually convinced you want to go there.
• I prepared extensively (probably too much) for interviews, so no possible question could catch me off-guard. UofC managed to still do it, though, lol.

Authenticity: I wrote my essays more colloquially than most people, with a personal narrative style, which I believe helped me stand out in a crowd of people with similar or better stats than me. I had personal stories, as well as stories from classes and extracurriculars. Focus on the things only you could write about, and if not, write about them in only a way you could. There is no best way to convey to an admissions officer that they should admit you, but I think the most advantageous is to be your most authentic self across all your materials.

Messaging: All of my materials had a throughline, which answered the questions of 1. Why law?, 2. Why now? and (sometimes) 3. Why here? I wrote all my essays and prepared my interview points with these three questions in mind. And all of my materials (even the LOR writers I chose) answered each of them in a similar way. Failing to answer the first 2 at any point will likely render your application DoA, and failing to answer 3 can bump you down from an A to a WL. I think I failed to do this during my Yale and UofC interviews, and it likely contributed to the WL results at both. On the contrary, I was able to focus my HLS interview on the 3rd question.

Approachability: This is mostly for interviews (even the recorded ones), but can apply to written material. I had assistance from beta blockers (lol) but I tried my best to be friendly and laid-back during interviews, though I kept it professional as well. I made my interviewers laugh, I asked genuine questions and sometimes follow-ups, and I overall treated the interviews as a chance to speak 1-on-1 with admissions, rather than a terrifying interrogation that could break my candidacy. This also complements the point about authenticity–without nerves I was less robotic and more conversational, a trait that law schools value a lot.

So there is my wisdom in a wall of text. This cycle has been stressful and difficult, and I imagine the next few cycles will be the same. I sincerely think that the most important aspect in all of this is that I truly want to go to law school for specific and personal reasons, and I can communicate that effectively to other people. If you find a way to do that, the rest will follow.